Don't let it define you
by Xenay LP
Summary: Sherlock hides his dyslexia behind phone autocorrect and John's help. But what happens when he meets a young school boy, who's also dyslexic but shows it with pride? I just couldn't help myself after I made the typo of 'episodes' to 'epsidoes'. (With the 'does' read as the deer doe, it sounds so adorable!) So here is a sequel lol


Author: Sherlock hides his dyslexia behind phone autocorrect and John's help. But what happens when he meets a young school boy, who's also dyslexic but shows it with pride?

I just couldn't help myself after I made the typo of 'episodes' to 'epsidoes'. (With the 'does' read as the deer doe, it sounds so adorable!!!!)

So here is a sequel lol

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Don't let it define you

John was at work in the hospital, getting ready to leave, when someone cleared their throat behind him.

When John turned, he saw a teenage boy, who couldn't be more than 16 years old, looking awkwardly at him. "Can I help you?" John asked him kindly and smiled.

"Maybe. Are you John Watson? The friend of the detective?" He asked him quietly.

"That's me. Anything we could help you with? I'm gonna be on my way to our flat as it is, I could take you with me."

"That would be great... thank you."

As they drove in a taxi, the boy showed him a folder. Apparently he had a project at school and wanted to know everything about John and Sherlock.

As John read through the notes he already had, he noticed something else. Beside the pretty bad but still readable writing, he noticed a pattern that he had come used to.

"You're dyslexic?" He asked, not in a mocking way.

The boy nodded, and to John's surprise he grinned at him.

"You aren't ashamed." John said and smiled fondly at the boy.

"Why should I be? It doesn't define me. Who cares if I can't spell, or read as quickly as others, if I still get the job done?" The boy explained.

John paused. "You know what, I think you coming to our flat will be a really good thing." John said. "I haven't even asked, what's your name, mate?"

"Max."

"Well Max, it looks like we're here." He said and pointed to the doorway of 221B that appeared outside the car window.

~linebreak~

They entered the flat. Max looked around in awe, and John carried the folder over to his flatmate, who was doing god knows what sort of 'experiment' in their kitchen.

"Hey Sherlock. I got something pretty interesting here. You should read it." John said and laid the folder on an empty spot on the table.

Sherlock stilled his movements. This was new. John hadn't asked him to read something himself if it was a longer text. So why now?

"Busy. If it's important then read it to me." He dismissed it.

John figured that he hadn't realized that they had a guest, otherwise he wouldn't have said those last words.

"Ahem." John said as Max came over to them. "Sherlock, meet Max. He's doing a school project on everyday heroes and-"

Sherlock snapped upright. "You know what I think of 'heroes'." He snapped at John, not even looking at the boy.

"Yeah, yeah, don't exist and you're not one of them. Get over it for one day and help him. Now read what he has so far so we can add to it. Please."

Sherlock was starting to suspect, and John knew it. "Why are you so obsessed with me reading school papers-" he complained while he picked it up and his eyes fell on the words.

John grinned, and Max was starting to make his own suspicions. _Maybe he is like me_. He grinned at the idea.

They watched Sherlock read, or skim, over the first page, and suddenly he looked up and directly at the boy. "You're -..."

"Dyslexic, yup." He said with an even prouder grin than he had given John.

But to both their surprise, Sherlock looked at him in utter disgust. How in the world could this boy be proud of such a thing? Sherlock hated it more than... than boredom!

"Sherlock." John warned. He was afraid this could backfire and instead of Max making Sherlock less embarrassed, he could as well make Max self-conscious about it.

"How." Sherlock breathed as he looked intently at Max, as if the answer would just jump at him.

"I don't let it define me. And neither should you." Max said with full confidence. "I don't care how many words I spell wrong in my life. Everyone messes up every once in a while too. And I'm awesome at doing presentations in class, so nobody really looks at the words in the power point, and only at me in the front. And my teachers don't count my mistakes in essays, after I told them that spelling has nothing to do with intelligence or a special talent in a language. And that it's unfair like if we'd be graded for singing in music class. Not everyone is a good singer, and we shouldn't get bad grades for something we can't help or control."

Sherlock had looked away somewhere in the middle of the speech. He silently wished he'd had the guts to stand up like this when he was in school. Instead he kept insulting teachers for the incompetence. But not even that had made the smallest difference. Instead they just hated him more.

He remembered the essays. They were always completely red when he had gotten it back. He never scored higher than a D when he was lucky, once. The thing he could do were dictates, because he had the luck of having a teacher that always said the words how they were spelled, except for the casual "i" "y" mistakes like when he wrote "tyger". He still remembers that one because that word had been his only mistake in one. He still got an A for it, but sadly dictates only counted 1/3 and were only 2 each year, while they had 4 essays every year. And when they left dictates out of the class program from year 7 to final, he always had an E and F in the school reports.

"Sherlock!" John's yell brought him back to reality. Sherlock blinked a few times as the memories faded from his mind. "I've called your name five times. Can we help him now?" He asked and looked at Max, who looked sad and worried at the detective.

"Sure. Yes. Of course. Let's get to that." He said and took off the chemistry glasses from his head.

~linebreak~

Sherlock had actually given Max his phone number, and wanted to know how it went.

He had received the message two days later:

**They loved it - thanx so much!**

**Max**

To which he replied with:

**Youre most wellcome**

**SH**

He also sent John a text about it, and to the doctors surprise, he realized with a smile that his friend had shut off his autocorrection.

**Max helled the presantation **

**Says they loved it**

**SH**

John went to reply when another text came in.

**Allso I red that your favourtie show comes on tv later with new epsidoes.**

**SH**

John kept smiling as he read through it over and over. He felt surprisingly proud of his friend. Not for letting him know about the new Doctor Who season, but because he felt safe enough and trusted John enough to let his guard down and not be embarrassed about making mistakes.

He decided to only reply with a thumbs up emoji and a smily face.

Who knew a teenage boy could teach Sherlock Holmes?


End file.
